The first Web page I created was a Christmas wish list at least 10 years ago. It doesn’t exist anymore; I might have the files somewhere, but they’d be on a zip disk, and who has a zip drive anymore? It was basically a collage of images on a white background, image-mapped. I only remember one thing from that list: A cell phone. I already had a phone, but it was a literally a car phone, and I wanted something much smaller. I didn’t get it.
In honor of that first Web page, here’s my Christmas (and birthday!) wish list:
- iPhone: I had to live without my phone for a whole day this week. I know, scary. Bearcat knocked it off a table (although it did land on the carpeted floor — it could have been much worse) and it stopped working. It would turn off, but not on. Then it said the SIM card, which hadn’t been touched, was missing. It finally cured itself, which is good and bad. Good, because I really shouldn’t be buying a new phone right now, even though I’ve had this one for two years and can trade it in. Bad, because now I don’t have an excuse to get a new phone. And I know the iPhone is trendy, but I’ve compared it to other smart phones (Thanks, Pogue-o-matic!) and it’s still the one I want.
- President Obama: Election 2008: As of next week, I’ll only be a print journalist one day a week. And I love the Web, I really do. But I still want this book of Nov. 5 newspaper front pages from around the world.
- The host with the most: I have an idea in my head for a family tree Web site. I bought the domains (spillman-smith.com, fulkerson-spillman.com, grimes-spillman.com, hoskins-fulkerson.com, collins-grimes.com and claasen-smith.com should cover almost everyone), but haven’t bought hosting or moved to actually set it up yet. I also have an image of a tree in my head that I haven’t been able to find/create yet. I’ve been scanning, saving and posting family photos and letters already, but I want to organize them and make things a little easier to find. I’d also like to do a little more digging into the family history. (I did find a rich cousin, but it’s a distant relation.)
- Music and movies: Both collections are suffering lately. Cousin Will’s “Hancock” was released yesterday. “The Dark Knight” comes out Dec. 9. Nickelback’s “Dark Horse” and Dido’s “Safe Trip Home” came out Nov. 18. The Killers “Day and Age” came out Nov. 25, although I’m on the fence on that one. (I swear they’re recycling stuff they’ve already done.) Maroon 5 will have a new CD on Dec. 9. And that’s just the recent/coming in December stuff! There’s still the new Streets CD that came out in a couple of months ago.
- Books: There are a lot of titles by favorite authors, including Carl Hiaasen, Fannie Flag, Lorna Landvik and Carol Higgins Clark, that I haven’t read. And a couple of learnin’ books, like The Definitive Guide to Django Web Development Done Right and FBML.
- Cupcake pan: Because everyone loves cupcakes! (This does not mean I will be making a lot of cupcakes. It probably means I’ll make more cornbread, though. (I love cornbread and honey.)
- Mint M&Ms: Which, until recently, were only available around Christmas. Because Santa loves mint and chocolate, too!
I created a little something that lets you write a letter to Santa — that’s probably more proactive than my approach here.
Wait, did I miss something? Why only one day a week at print? You didn’t fall victim to the current plague of our industry, did you?